For more than four hours, no one heard from Braden Varney. The 10-year veteran of California’s firefighting force had been dispatched to bulldoze a firebreak on a precarious ridge near Marble Point in Mariposa County, an effort to contain the stubborn Ferguson Fire near Yosemite.

It was before dawn on July 14, and the blaze that ignited a day earlier in Sierra National Forest was pushing toward the tiny town of Jerseydale. – PUB DATE: 8/3/2018 12:00:00 AM – SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle